09 Nov 1985, Posted by Scott An Chora in Travelogue, No Comments.
11/09 Jerusalem, Israel
My eyes were glued to the window of the bus. The landscape we passed reminded me a lot of my home. The anticipation of knowing Jerusalem was approaching was beginning to take hold. There were many images that had been presented to me throughout my youth that I now have the opportunity to touch. The bus let us off at the Jaffa Gate. Jenni had a name and address of a family given to her from a mutual friend that could perhaps put us up for the night. I noticed a tourist office just off to my left and thought that might be a good place to start and to find ourselves a map of the city. The agent searched the local phone directory and made a phone call for us. The woman on the other end of the phone agreed to meet with us at their home in few hours. The tourist agent penciled out a crude map and we were on our way. We discussed bearing gifts so we went searching for fruit but I first wanted to locate where they lived and then proceed from there. If you were a young lady blessed with blond hair in need of attention this is the place. It was a different framed picture than what I experienced in Europe and appeared to have changed little from say the last thousand years. It was easy to imagine we had traveled back in time. We sat alongside the road and watched the many faces pass. There was an old man attempting to repair the road with just his hands and a chisel, there were garments draped over a woman’s shoulder, vending water came from a tall brass container that was toted around over a man’s shoulder, all seemed unchanged and all added to that sense of time travel. Then we crossed a pair of wild eyes like a child caught stealing and not knowing what to expect. He had a machine gun strapped over his shoulder and he couldn’t have been older that sixteen. His fear made him dangerous and perhaps unpredictable, so I kept one eye on him to see what he was noticing.
We continued down the city’s arteries searching through shops and gathered up a variety of fruit. Bearing fruit made the two of us feel more comfortable showing up at a stranger’s door. Our map didn’t quite lead exactly to the door but knowing the family’s name and asking questions eventually pointed us in the right direction. We were greeted by an elderly woman who looked much older than she actually was. She gestured for us to sit across from her while her many children gathered around us. Each with smile ear to ear and a curious stare. She thanked us for the fruit and offered us a cup of tea. We attempted to have a conversation but the wall between our two languages was too high for either one of us to climb. We hoped that they had an available space where we could sleep the night but their home appeared to be too small for the two of them and children. About that time her husband arrived and we repeated the same trading of smiles. I think they offered the balcony for us to sleep on but I think both of us were looking for something inside. We said our goodbyes and went searching for a room on our own. We managed to locate a German run hostel that was ideal. It was clean, reasonably priced and had a beautiful view of the city. The hostel was pretty packed and had no individual rooms for us to share but there were available beds in each of the gender separated dorms. Good enough for us. Down in the kitchen we discovered an assortment of pots and pans. Having the accessibility to cook our own meals was an invitation to save some coinage.
Jenni had finally called home. She had been talking about it for few days but was avoiding the task. During the conversation with her mother she broke into tears. Deep down she was home sick and hearing her mother’s voice brought all those feelings to the surface. Once she recovered we wandered down into the streets and gathered up the ingredients for that night’s meal. After a few cups of coffee we grabbed a few blankets and claimed a bench out on the patio. I have to admit we had gotten lucky to get such a wonderful spot. We could see the Dome of The Rock glowing under the night’s moon. Occasionally we would see shadows running across the roof tops unnoticed by everybody but the two of us. Must have been an interesting place to grow up in. We both agreed that it would be an ideal location to view the next day’s sunrise and set our alarms. Both in blankets we watched the sleeping city awake. Sleeping in this part of the world does take some getting used to. The Moslems prayed every four hours or something like that. They built towers so that the elders could scream out the prayers over the faithful but with the electronic age each towers are now equipped with loud speakers. I could see that irritating a lot of people. Not those with just different religious views but those who liked their sleep. We each headed back into bed to get a couple more hours of sleep and planned on visiting Bethlehem in the morning.
